nothing beats starting on a new tlp,getting your first pet spell on the mage.going from quenos to blackborrow,then highcamp,running through kitkikor,getting to the ec tunnel,then moving into upper guk then lower guk,then the raiding i love early eq.
Nothing will ever beat early EQ. And POP was the best, they should have ended EQ right there. They did everything right.
I strongly disagree. It's all too common to see through rose-tinted glasses & paint over many glaring complaints 20 years later & to have fond memories, human beings have a knack for forgetting bad things & being optimistic rather than realistic. I played 1999 to 2008, I was not a big fan of early EQ at all, my runs through the early content on TLP only further confirmed that. I felt that the game play in the first few expansions was poor comprised of a lot of overly exaggerated time-sinks, if you were fortunate enough to find friends to play with regularly it was less horrible but never good, so much of the game was dependent upon extremely long, boring camps it was successful because there was nothing around even remotely like it at the time so it had no competition people just didn't know how bad it really was because there was nothing to really compare it to. It was full of frustrations, had a horrible interface originally, and the gameplay was sluggish & painfully slow on purpose, waiting around ages while your priest meditated after a few kills was dull, so much of the social interaction was less about cooperating & much more about passing the time trying not to fall asleep while your mana users refilled their bars. And that's before you get into the many game-breaking bugs that existed & which could ruin a whole evening's worth of effort. A lot of the developers of World of Warcraft had been players of EQ, they set out to make a game that took what EQ got right & fixed what EQ was doing wrong & certainly in "Vanilla" WoW they did just that & simply made a better game, it diverged afterwards and became its own thing & made its own huge mistakes but at the outset they had learned from EQ, in turn EQ would learn from WoW. The TLP experience made those early expansions just about bearable, most of the bugs got fixed, some of the worst bottlenecks were reduced, and things worked better, also we had much, much better XP rates and the damage and mitigation was a bit better, the game was overall easier, the long boring camps were still there but with the quality of life improvements like no corpse runs it was far better now, it took 15 years and some heavy hitting competitors to get EQ to that stage My favourite era of EQ is probably at a point many of the players like yourself would already quit long before. TSS onwards the game is a different EQ it has many of the things that were great about early EQ without as many of the things that were bad about EQ, it had evolved a lot even by then and for me the folks that want the classic or P99 Green style EQ still I consider to be gaming masochists. TSS + era EQ takes the best things from EQ before that point and then removes a lot of the "pointless pain", it still has some camping, frustrations, annoyances and will happily kill you over & over but it feels much "fairer" and more balanced than early EQ ever will. I am very glad EQ did not just end at PoP, there is vastly more EQ after PoP that there is before it for sure, if you don't like the more refined game, the more complex game, the less pointlessly painful for no damn good reason except to waste your time game - well okay, I am totally okay with you liking a different era than I do, but saying that EQ should have ended after PoP is just completely & utterly stupid.
Skuz, Your point further illustrates the need to allow players an easier way to experience those later expansions you're referring to. Starting in TSS with a level 1, without a support system to power-level up, won't be fun for anyone. Starting with a level 50 or 60 that's sat dormant since Classic or Velious isn't much better. The EULA frowns on certain methods to circumvent that frustration, and I agree with EULA in that regard. There should be a better way to experience the Lev 65+ game on TLPs than what is currently available. I used to think I enjoyed Classic on TLPs because the of the nostalgia. While that's part of it, what I really enjoy are the 1-2 day PSock sessions racing to 50 at launch with a few friends, and some I make along the way. Now, I can't do that every week, or even every month. But, once or twice a year, I like to get my nerd on.
Yeah I think you might perhaps be what I would knowingly & disparagingly refer to as "one of those damn seasonal players", you may go super-hardcore when you play but then also have big gaps between your playing phases. For a raiding guild that is the absolute worst player you can possibly have, and a guild that ends up with a lot of players like that is a nightmare to lead, I know this from bitter experience. Guilds survive on consistency, Raiding guilds acutely so, and having been a raid leader, officer & Guild Leader on occasion of several family, casual raiding, hardcore high end raiding & medium core raiding guilds I can definitely say I would take 10 players who consistently play for just 2 days a week over 10 players who are super hardcore for a few weeks or months of the year with big gaps between their active phases every single time - that on/off playstyle is only viable on a live server maybe, on a TLP I would if up front knowing a player is like that absolutely reject their application. I would even go so far as to say to ALL seasonal players, please never ever play on a TLP and join a raiding guild, I don't want you, no raid leader with a plan to raid regularly wants you because they cannot rely on you to show up when needed, give me all the consistent 2 day a week players that exist & I can build a titan of a progression guild that slaughters content with a full pumped-up motivated raid force on 2 days a week. I'd rather tear off my own gonads with pliers than lead a guild full of seasonal players ever again.
Lol that got dark quickly, but you aren't wrong I suppose. The ones who pop in and out every couple of expansions soak up loot and then disappear for another 3-9 months aren't helping the guild long term at all and while its nice to see old faces come back, its also frustrating seeing gear go to them when you know it won't be completed (in the eras with gear progression) or will be useless by the time they come back when a more stable attendance raider could use it for an expac or two.
I agree with Skuz. Early EQ gets too much leniency due to nostalgia. Even with most of the bugs gone, there are still horribly overlooked issues with it. 1. Class balance literally doesn't exist. 2. Unnecessarily ridiculous bottleneck grinds which are even more exaggerated in the dense populations of TLP. Do you seriously like waiting 12 hours for a single piece of a key? I don't. 3. Bland raiding & group content. Everything is essentially the same thing with different models of npcs. Grind, tank and spank type stuff with no real interesting mechanics. 4. Itemization is almost as bad as class balance 5. Overly simplistic game play. Melee classes could just turn auto attack on and people probably wouldn't notice anything. However, many people don't like the complexity of modern EQ, which I'll never understand. Classic, Kunark, and even Velious become ghost towns within a month. Why? Cause there just isn't anything to do once you're max leveled. Your main purpose is money grinding which is boring af.
HAHA! I can certainly understand your position. I, also, certainly have a history of burning out on TLPs around the Velious era. However, up to that point, I raid consistently and regularly. Respond to batphones whenever able. That's around 5-7 months of consistent attendance, and I'm able to make around 60% of all raids (probably 30% of batphones and 85% of scheduled raid nights). Also, during those periods I try and do a decent job of keeping my character "respectably geared" and bring the needed potions for raids, etc. Further, at server launch and Kunark launch, I historically "go hard" and race to the cap with pre-made groups. For those events I clear my schedule. Thus, I'm "ready to raid" as early as anyone. Sure I'll take the occasional night/weekend off when "real life" interferes. I am, after all, an adult with adult responsibilities. I'm sure there may be a week or two when I'm tied up with work crap or out of town on vacation. Am I the best guild member ever? Hardly. But, when I'm playing, I do show up when expected, and I'm always willing to listen to advice on how to play my character better, and when I see people making errors I generally find a polite way to educate them. I may not always know what I'm doing on raids, but I will always listen and take direction, such that I learn my guilds "raid strats" and learn my role after a few iterations. In XP groups, if I'm the "worst player", then the group won't have any issues because I know what I'm doing. My issue is I just get burnt out. Perhaps if I avoided the "batphone" type guild and went with one just raiding the 2 nights a week, that would be better for me long term. Also, in all fairness to real-life, my job gets really busy during the first of the year. Combined with the holidays and such my play time plummets from Xgiving till about March. I could be totally off base, but I suspect I'm the sort of dude you'd want in your guild, "when I'm playing". The challenge, for me, is maintaining that 12 months a year. I don't want the hassle of catching up on 15+ levels and 100's of AA after taking a period of time off. So, I've always just started over on the launch of a new TLP. If there was an easy way for me to get a dormant character "up to speed" on a TLP that is "mature", I would likely take advantage of it. I have a few RL friends who follow this pattern with TLPs, and I've come across many more over the years who follow this pattern as well, which is why I suspect there is a market for this.
I think that player burn-out is a serious issue for any guild, certainly I see way more of the 2-days a week raiding guilds now than I ever saw back in the day, even on TLP, and I think that is largely the case because of leaders knowing from experience that they don't want to burn out players with too heavy a raid schedule, very few guilds are comprised of enough hardcore minded players to manage an almost constant raiding schedule (5 days a week, every week style). I know many live guilds once into "farm mode" raid for a day or two a week versus their "progression mode" 4-5 days a week, and the game itself is probably moving in the right direction by having calendar unlocked raid content in the most recent expansions (ToV & CoV) rather than then older keying/flagging systems. But on TLP the 4 & 5 raiding days a week guilds are very common, because progression mode is pretty much always-on during 2 month unlocks & farm mode is often just the last 4 weeks of a 3 month unlock, it's not uncommon to see players taking the last week of an expansion off completely on TLP. In EQ there is always a heavy temptation for players to be a bit too "completist" in era, but on TLP given how short a time between expansions they get that can easily lead to burn out if you aren't making any conscious effort to pace yourself. Picking some things you want to complete from the "menu" of things to do each expansion offers rather than attempting to complete "everything on the menu" is one way to reduce that burnout, over the years of playing I have certainly learnt to recognise when I need to take breaks, typically I'll get target-fixated on some particular goal or set of goals but I am much more mindful of biting off more than I can chew now. I understand that drive to get as much as possible done though, I've burned out on EQ myself once or twice, but you definitely can get better at balancing your desires vs a realistic set of goals and I think it will make you a happier overall player and a more consistent one when you can exercise some self-restraint & know when to take appropriate breaks. I get the career / job demands too, one reason I was not playing EQ 2008-2015 was I was working a job that had a very MMORPG unfriendly schedule, working night shifts & early AM shifts plays merry hell with your gaming hobby but also as I unfortunately discovered can really screw with your mental health. I think every EQ player at least needs to look at their own playstyle & recognise ways to avoid burnout, what things they need to change will be different for every individual so I'm certainly not going to start preaching any one size fits all solution but I think most of us do deep-down know the specific reasons why we get fatigued.
I get the rose-colored glasses analysis, and I agree with it to some extent. However, I can say that for me EQ is most fun and interesting, when I'm grinding it out, trying to get that next item that gives me 5-more AC or another few plat in my pocket. Saving up to bankroll the next 20-points in some trade skill, so I could reliably craft that next piece of banded mail or that spell scroll I need. I've often heard players talk about how EQ, WoW and other MMORPG's don't "start" until end-game. I've just never related to that view. Raiding is fun, but it's a different kind of fun for me, and I'm not typically in a huge rush to get there. What starts to take the fun out of the game is finding myself racing to catch up or keep up with a player base that values fast progression above all else or farming lucrative items to make bank in the Bazaar. From my own perspective the two best things they could do for TLP servers is stop selling krono and slow the release of expansions way down. Making nearly everything no-trade would help, too, but I realize that's a pretty extreme opinion. None of those things are going to happen, though, as they would starve the cash cow. I just resign myself to making the best of the game I'm given. I just need to find a guild that isn't hell bent on keeping up with the unlocks.
Slowing stuff way down were done... it was one of the worst performing servers ever... Some oblivious people thought the slow exp, slow server would be for the "easy peasy people" and the fast server with fast exp would be for the "hardcore people" oh boy where they wrong... Everyone wanted the "faster exp... but that also meant faster expansions" Keep the exp "good" (not Phinny low, it was horribad bad in classic/trilogy) but do NOT keep the classic etc at like 6 months (we had Velious early and it didn't end early even though we started early) it was horribad and long and urgh... but we made it through... Launching classic alone is... NOT FUN... slap in Kunark too... make it 3-4 months... add in the odus zones right away, when they actually matter... I remember playing them on live (there were still live at lower levels that far into the game) lots of people to group with and TONS of places to go... and heck could even consider Velious and call it a Trilogy opening... Velious has some AWESOME lower (30+) level zones that NOONE uses (pretty much) because we were all 60 when we got there so all those zones were pointless unless someone was crazy enough to make an alt (exp was still horribad) If slapping in Velious then make it 6 months... I wouldn't mind that... it wouldn't be a server for "racers" though, they would get bored... and "good exp" would also encourage alts = even more low level to give life in the lower zones... then 3 months Luclin, 3 months PoP+LoY+LDoN, 3 months GoD (it was AWESOME on Phinny, very nice raid stuff, and some nice challenging group stuff), 3 months OoW, 3 months DoDH+PoR. Most of us are getting "old" too... many don't have 16 hours a day or can even raid 4 days a week... but many still wanna play because they love EQ for various reasons... but it shouldn't be slow punishment to play it... but a slower opening server with good exp should not have a server starting next year to drain off the pop (every year new tlp is what kills many of them off) thankfully Phinny survived... better than most and it had an unbelieavebly strong euro scene, usually the US guilds swallow everything... on Phinny it was the euro guilds that absorbed the US guilds... I would consider a new tlp if it were "slower than phinny" but not as slow as the old "newbie gamer" server they presented which was a total flop... and 6 months in classic is NOT fun when there are so few zones... and when you finally get to a new expansion 60% of the zones are useless because you are already max level (so please give us a Trilogy server) and let us have all the low level fun zones to faf around in and good enough exp to make alts without feeling punished for doing so.
That's among the many reasons why an LLP (level-locked progression) has some interesting advantages vs a standard expansion unlocking TLP, with the entire game's zones, class/race combinations also available and just the levels being unlocked on a schedule you have a really wide variation of zones to play & level up in, all those places that were too low to be rewarding by the time they were launched would be viable, and everyone can pick their favourite race & class right at the start.
That's a great idea. Unfortunately EQ's core design has proved notoriously unaccommodating to large scale customization - not that it's impossible, just that the time and effort involved is prohibitive. Enabling an expansion, while disabling certain features of that expansion like mercs, character boosts, etc. and the content related to those features is apparently a pretty large task. Not to mention it would be counter to a large part of the reason TLP servers exist which is the classic experience. Heck, I was pleasantly surprised, when they were able to roll out TLP servers in the first place.
This could be as simple at the most basic level as just taking a bog-standard live server then adding AoC & layering a level-lock system right over the top, of course there could be additional "restrictions" added to build more unique LLP servers. Those restrictions could also be level locked in nature, you could get into a complex debate about where each of the menagerie of EQ features fits into a LLP schedule for any given type pf LLP and whether you are trying to build a LLP type to more closely mimic alive server or a TLP server, but this can be done relatively simply, here's a few LLP types that could be used as examples. You could have a type A LLP, which has few restrictions apart from level locks, everything from the tutorial zone to mercs & defiant gear drops is all available right off the bat, it's purposefully more casual friendly & the movement through levels will be fast as the xp is started at live xp rate, server has AoC but no Truebox. You could have a type B LLP which is designed to more closely mimic the experience of the TLP that have gone before, it starts with no tutorial, progression XP and no focus effects or defiant gear drops from world mobs, level 60 must unlock before focus effects are put back in, GoD XP & the tutorial zone does not become active until level 65 unlocks, tradeskill recipes that are TLP-flagged are in from the start & removed once level 75 is unlocked (mimics how they are removed on TLP when TSS unlocks), Live XP is from TSS onwards, no mercs are available until level 80 unlocks. Server starts with AoC & Truebox, Truebox is switched off once level 75 unlocks, Free to Play is enabled once level 95 unlocks. You could have a type C LLP this server starts with "Classic XP", all of the spells & melee abilities are reverted to being as close to the original values in each expansion as possible (classes that came later will be "back-dated" to be in line with where they would have been had they existed on launch day) by way of a permanent class-based debuff on each player rather than having MoTM on raid mobs, Experience will rise more closely in line with how it was increased on live over time. Focus effects will only be available once level 60 unlocks. There will be AoC & Truebox, Truebox will be removed once level 75 unlocks, Free to play will be enabled once level 95 Unlocks. Mercs will be unlocked with level 80. The "debuff" is scaled so that it;s detrimental effects are reduced as the levels are unlocked so that the players are not experiencing content with too many of the changes from the live game that made it far easier. Now for some ideas that are a bit more "out-there". You could have a type D LLP this server is highly experimental, its aim is to make "old EQ" more like new EQ in a way that addresses the desire for "Harder EQ" it has all of the features of the type C but the mobs are given a wider range of abilities, the players too are given a wider range of abilities with much of the tools of later expansions given back-filled versions, where high level disciplines, spells are given scaled-down lower level versions. Raid mobs are similarly given a bump up in complexity of mechanics involved, the tank & spank of old EQ is subverted for a modern EQ experience from very low levels, dealing with add waves, dealing with isolate mechanics, curing decision mechanics, split raid formation mechanics, stack & splash mechanics, in/out AE Rampage phases, positional change mechanics, directional emotes etc. This is the real "hard EQ" deal, it takes the old EQ settings, zones, named & raid bosses & infuses it all with 21 years of design evolution from the start. (NOTE: This is likely too expensive to make given all the work that would be involved, so it's very much just a "what if" type of thought experiment scenario) You could have a type E LLP this server is the inverse of the type D LLP, where the type D took all of the old events & modernised them the type E takes all the modern events & retrogrades them, all of the raids additional complexities & mechanics, named effects and additional spells & abilities added from GoD onwards are removed, reduced, simplified down to the "Fisher Price" style of gameplay of the classic experience. Instead what you have is a server that tries to keep all of the gameplay in the bare bones aesthetic of classic gameplay, a very limited toolset, very limited simple raid events & very simple gear choices that do not inflate at the same rate as the Live game does, keeping the game as no more complex than Planes of Power was you can now see the game how it would be if it was radically dumbed down beyond belief to suit a classic player mindset, every raid is that simple tank & spank that you love so much, all your gear increases are just a few hp or ac instead of rising by a ton each expansion, no more emote fests that mean if you don't have Gina you will fail spectacularly & wipe the whole raid, Netflixing & relaxing with your slippers & cocoa will be something you can enjoy for many more expansions beyond Planes of Power. No Out of combat regen so you have ample opportunity for sitting around waiting for mana bars to refill while you socialise. No more "stupidly big numbers" will be seen by the players doing damage or the mobs, everything will be as easy street cruise mode simple & brainless as it was back in 1999-2001, the classic feel will take you through to the very latest expansions without you ever having to actually experience what they were really like, you will not be playing once it reaches live of course. (NOTE: This is likely too expensive to make given all the work that would be involved, so it's very much just a "what if" type of thought experiment scenario, no sarcasm was involved in this idea......I promise.....okay that was a lie there was a lot...sorry about that....sorry about breaking my promise too...no not really sorry at all this was fun to write)
